U.S. households are now getting more in cash handouts from the government than they are paying in taxes for the first time since the Great Depression. Households received $2.3 trillion in some kind of government support in 2010. That includes expanded unemployment benefits, as well as payments for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and stimulus spending, among other things.

But that’s more than the $2.2 trillion households paid in taxes, an amount that has slumped largely due to the recession, according to an analysis by the Fiscal Times.And the handouts from the government have been growing. Government cash handouts account for a whopping 79% of household growth since 2007, even as household tax payments--for things like the income and payroll tax, among other taxes--have fallen by $312 billion.That is a tough feeding trough to take away from voters.

What about all the taxes being paid every day. Sales taxes on everything you buy, even food in some states. Gasoline tax, cigarette tax, liquor tax, property tax, automobile license tax, and probably many more depending on what state you live in. Of course, you can't pay into income tax when you don't have any income that is taxable. But, UI is also taxable, forgot that.

what they are saying is probably true but that just means that we are in a recession and those people (us) either have no job or have a job paying a lot less than in 2007. Any economic growth these people have is due to government "handouts". This seems obvious to me.

The independent Government Accounting Office (GAO) found that 72 percent of large foreign controlled companies and 55 percent of large U.S. controlled companies haven't paid taxes. On the other hand, American families will spend an average of 28 percent of their income to pay federal, state and local taxes this year according to the non-partisan Tax Foundation.

wealth growth...PLEASE! Most of us are on the verge of homelessness or are already, have moved in with family, lost vehicles, credit is shot, spent rainy day savings annuities, etc. I would love to know what wealth growth means to these people.

LOL!!!!! I love how they say "handouts". The sad thing is FOX ( aka FAUX ) is going to continue to push this delusion and the self-righteous, judgemental, watered down versions of "Americans" are going to continue to buy into it until they are affected by the same government they so called love and trust...excuse me while I go and post this on the same site....no worries DesperateinRI wont read there ...just copy and pasting. lol **sigh**

I wonder how many of her 'statistics' she pulled out of her Jerk. In the first place as of November 2010, according to the WSJ, who I am sure any FOX *cough* journalist could cite, says there were 43.6 million on Food Stamps at that time.

Second, did this FOX bimbo think over 40 million ELIGIBLE Seniors who were robbed to pay into SS/MED were never going to cash out? Not to mention all the unemployed people who had to take an early retirement, how many articles have there been about that? Maybe she ought to pull her head out of her Jerk where she obviously gets some of her statistics and check out real data and other sources.

Third, if you look up the banks cited in the article you will find they both could receive tax refunds in 2010 in the millions.

All this Idiot had to do was search with the phrase' companies who don't pay taxes' and she would see who is really getting the biggest fricking handouts of anyone in this Country.